What do Mike Sullivan and Odie Cleghorn have in common?
Both coached in Pittsburgh, and they’re the only two coaches in NHL history whose teams started a season with more than 156 scoreless minutes on home ice.
The Sullivan-led Rangers entered the record books in a 2-0 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday, surpassing the 2001-02 Florida Panthers (155:17) for the longest season-opening scoreless streak at home among still-existing franchises. The only team with a longer streak was the 1928-29 Pittsburgh Pirates, led by Cleghorn, who went for 187:19.
“You go through slumps here and there,” New York center Sam Carrick said. “I haven’t quite seen it like this to start the season where we just can’t buy one, but this is where you lean on experience and our veterans that have been around.”
Despite lasting more than 180 minutes without a goal on home ice, the Pirates were only blanked in their first two home games, not three, with both going to overtime. Back then, the NHL had 10-minute overtime periods that did not automatically end when a goal was scored. So the Pirates went 140 minutes without scoring through two home games before Hib Milks scored 47:19 into their third home game.
New York is the first team in history to score zero goals in its first three home games of a season, with its goal drought now at 180 minutes. If the Rangers don’t doesn’t score in the first 7:19 of Monday’s home game against the Minnesota Wild, they will take sole control of the record. Chris Kreider, off to a hot scoring start with the Anaheim Ducks, assisted his now-former club’s most recent goal at Madison Square Garden on April 17.
Fans have grown restless in New York, scattering boos at the end of a second-period power play Tuesday against the Oilers. Fortunately for the Rangers, though, they seem destined for a better fate than Cleghorn’s 1928-29 Pirates, who finished 9-27-8 and got shut out 18 times.
Sullivan’s group is playing stingy defense and generating scoring chances, even if it’s still waiting for the offensive results to follow. Against the Oilers, New York led 10-3 in high-danger chances, according to Clear Sight Analytics. It had six against the Capitals, as well as 11 mid-danger chances. According to Clear Sight, NHL teams scored on one of every 8.6 mid-danger chances in 2024-25.
✍️ Scoring Chances Report @NYRangers vs @Capitals
11 Mid-Danger Chances in one game is a lot — last season, teams scored 1 goal every 8.6 MD chances. #NYR
Data Courtesy of @csahockey pic.twitter.com/VlQhd13Kgw
— Stephen Valiquette (@VallysView) October 13, 2025
The Rangers have posted three-plus expected goals in two of their three home games and average more than three per home game this season, per MoneyPuck. In October 2024, teams league-wide with at least three expected goals were shut out at home only three times all month, as pointed out by X user HockeyStatMiner. One was the Penguins, then coached by Sullivan, who had 3.19 expected goals in a shutout loss to Igor Shesterkin and the Rangers in last season’s opener.
“It’s not sustainable that the puck’s not going to go in the net if we continue to generate the type of looks that we generated,” Sullivan said Tuesday. He added the next day that the sample for the season remains small.
And small samples can lead to funky results. Both of New York’s wins this year have come on the road, where it has averaged less zone time, fewer rush chances and fewer slot chances than home, according to Mike Kelly of Sportlogiq. But in those two games, the team has scored four and six goals, respectively.
In the Rangers’ first home game — the season opener — they delivered a clunker of a performance against the Pittsburgh Penguins, who are widely expected to finish at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings. But Sunday’s 1-0 loss to the Washington Capitals and Tuesday’s against Edmonton have been much better showings: “The two best games we’ve played this year,” in defenseman Will Borgen’s eyes.
“Catching hot goalies, but it doesn’t matter,” Borgen added. “It’s going to happen during the year. It just happens to be the beginning of the year at home.”
Capitals goalie Charlie Lindgren and the Oilers’ Stuart Skinner combined for 65 saves at Madison Square Garden.
Cleghorn, who is given credit for being the first coach to have set forward lines, and his dreadful 1928-29 Pirates could probably relate. As the Associated Press wrote after Pittsburgh’s second home game of the season, a 0-0 tie against the Montreal Canadiens, “The Rock of Gibraltar was moved to the United States and inserted in Les Canadiens goal-mouth to offset a Pittsburgh Pirate thrust that threatened from the opening gun to the closing whistle.”
The 1925 Pittsburgh Pirates, three years before they entered the NHL record books for offensive ineptitude. (Bettmann Archive / Getty Images)
The Rock of Gibraltar appears to have relocated once again, this time to the visiting crease at Madison Square Garden. In the second period of the Washington game, Artemi Panarin led a two-on-one rush and passed to Mika Zibanejad, who wired a shot on net. Lindgren slid across his crease and somehow speared it.
“That one-timer was a bomb,” Sullivan said. “What are the chances? If you give him 20 of those, he’s probably scoring on 19 of them.”
Lindgren robbed Zibanejad again on a power play later that period. Later in the game, Conor Sheary wasn’t able to connect on a two-on-one feed that could’ve been a goal.
Against Edmonton, Braden Schneider whipped a rebound past Skinner, but the puck hit the crossbar. The Rangers couldn’t take advantage of a brief five-on-three power play, and Skinner made clutch saves on quality Adam Edström looks. Sam Carrick, Edström’s center, also had quality chances. One of his shots hit Skinner’s post off the rush — Carrick lifted his arm as he rounded the net, appearing to think the puck went in — and the goalie made a windmill save on him late in the third to preserve Edmonton’s lead.
“(Skinner) played well, for sure,” Carrick said. “A lot of those, they’re hitting him and a right bounce here or there it could’ve been a different game. … I think if we continue to play the way we did tonight and even last game against Washington we’re going to be a tough team to play against this year. Especially once the goals start coming.”
Though New York’s underlying numbers have certainly warranted a goal (and likely more), the team does not have a roster full of elite finishers. Panarin is New York’s only player who scored more than 30 goals last year, and he has zero to start this season. Only Panarin and captain J.T. Miller had more than 30 in 2023-24.
Zibanejad has generated quality offense to start the year — his shot volume and quality is up from recent seasons, per Evolving-Hockey — but he’s either been robbed by goalies, missed the net or at points whiffed on looks. Can he get his scoring touch back? He hasn’t topped 30 goals since 2022-23, when he had 39, and the Rangers will likely need him to fill some of the current offensive void.
“Obviously, we need to bear down and score on the chances that we get, but it’d be a different thing if we didn’t create chances and we were giving up chance after chance,” Zibanejad said after the Edmonton game. “Frustrating, but we have to find a way to just stick with it.”
Quality looks from the likes of Edström and Carrick are great, but there’s a reason those forwards are in the bottom six. They don’t have the same finishing ability as the team’s more-skilled players. If this drought proves to be an anomaly, it will be because the top-six forwards start to deliver and the rest of the lineup provides some supplementary scoring.
The dressing room believes that’s coming.
“We’re going to score goals,” Borgen said. “It’s just a weird funk right now.”
“If we continue to generate quality scoring chances at the rate which we’re doing, I believe they’re going to go in the net,” Sullivan added. “Our players are too talented.”
New York plays in Toronto on Thursday and in Montreal on Saturday. Then the Rangers will return home with a chance to finally get a goal at MSG. Carrick said Tuesday night that they’re “dying” to give the fans a reason to cheer.
Forward Hib Milks eventually did for the 1928-29 Pirates. The Rangers will be looking for their own version of Milks against Minnesota — ideally for them before 7:19 passes and they set another unenviable record.